Yesterday, driving home from the office, I caught a quick interview on KNX1070 radio that stated there were only 800 active listings for San Fernando Valley.

800 seemed like a lot of homes for sale, until I realized the Valley has more than 1.75 million people. So I did a quick look this morning in our area to see what Ventura and Oxnard look like, compared to a couple of years ago.

Oxnard has 102 total single family homes for sale which include four REO homes and 2 short sale homes. In 2010 Oxnard had an inventory range from 142 to 219.

There’s been a sharp falloff in short sales and foreclosures this year leading to shrinking inventory levels. There are still many short sale deals in the pipeline (backup/contingent deals and pendings), but once those deals close escrow in the next few months there simply won’t be a lot of those deals out there to hold down the market.

The major obstacle to buyers (other than low inventory) are the appraisals. Appraisals look backwards in time (solds) whereas the market is forward looking. There are now substantial gaps between the offered price and the appraisal and buyers must make up that difference in cash.

The KNX1070 interviewer yesterday stated “Don’t offer the listed price – you’ll have to offer more” if you want to get the home.

Skimming through the Sunday LA Times over a cup of coffee yesterday (and another article earlier in the week) I laughed to myself about “what goes around comes around”.

The earlier article explained how desperate buyers today, competing against multiple offers on “their” property, are writing letters to the sellers of the home which they submit along with their offer.

They plead (must include photos of kids and dog) their case about why they would be the best choice for the sellers – and from my experience, sometimes IT WORKS!

When a seller is merely looking at names and numbers on a piece of paper, it’s hard to see the real people behind those names and numbers. So sometimes that connection, via a “love letter” from the buyer to the seller, seals the deal.

Contingency free means a buyer gives up certain protections. A big one today is appraisals. Normally, a buyer will have a contingency that the home must appraise at a certain point (the lender will only lend to that amount). If the appraisal is higher, the buyer can choose to walk. Because appraisers look backwards in time to closed deals and today’s market is looking forward, the appraisal is usually much lower than the offered price. Thus the buyer must be prepared (and be able to show proof of funds with their offer) that they can cover the higher offered price with additional cash.

I saw my first escalation clause around 2005 I think. We listed a home in a very competitive market like today, got multiple offers, but one offer didn’t list an offer price. Instead, it merely stated the buyer would pay $1,000 more than the highest, verifiable offer received. Wow – I’d never seen that before! But we accepted that offer and closed on it. Now those offers are coming back and can be a powerful tool if used correctly.

Leslie recently used the low ball listing strategy. It was a short sale and she priced the lovely home at the very low end of the value range. That Sunday open house saw a stampede of people and spirited bidding. The home closed escrow almost $50k higher than the listed price and not one offer came in at listed price – they were all higher.

So when working with buyers today, we say don’t look at the listed price! It may be irrelevant!It is crucial buyers know real values and “don’t guess” at what they’ll offer for a home – they’ll just waste everyone’s time. But once they’re in the game (after a few failed offers), they’ll know exactly what a home is worth and will be ready to fight for it.

Listed below are the March real estate charts for sold prices and the number of homes sold.

This data is taken from the Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo MLS.

Even though there’s been an increase in home sales in March, there’s still a lack of inventory in entry level homes. That continues the trend of multiple offers for homes that are priced competitively. Distressed home sales (short sales and bank owned) are thinning out, which is adding to less inventory for sale. However, certain segments (like beach homes in Oxnard) have good inventory levels and aren’t seeing the intense bidding that’s occurring for more modest priced homes.

The percentage of single family homes that were distressed sales in the month of March are:

A number of years ago Leslie and I began thinking about the “inevitable” – the transition from our full time jobs as Realtors to …what? And when?

We knew we weren’t just going to sit in our rocking chairs on the porch!

I’m turning 65 at the end of the year (I’m an almost Christmas baby) and Leslie turns…29.

We’ve taken to heart the concept of “finishing well”. It can mean many different things to people, but for us it ultimately means full time volunteerism at some point down the road.

But what kind of volunteerism? We’ve been reaching out to many different people and organizations to see what might possibly be a good “fit” for us. We’ve done numerous seminars over the years and love teaching, so we recently started teaching a Wednesday night ESL class at the Adult Center on Ventura Avenue under the Laubach Literacy program. What fun (and a little bit of work)!

This ESL class for us is just the first step into a future someday of “finishing well”. We’ll keep you posted on our thoughts, explorations and musings as we begin our journey down this road!